On the first day of 2018, the college football gods gave us … another all-SEC national championship game? Really?

Six years ago, LSU and Alabama played a January rematch so dreadful it essentially broke the BCS. The mystical four-team playoff that college commissioners had spent decades avoiding suddenly came to fruition just six months after the Tide’s 21-0 strangling (featuring one touchdown and five field goals) of the Tigers in New Orleans.

On the surface, next Monday’s Alabama-Georgia championship clash seems just as obnoxious, at least for those who live in every other part of the country. Once again, the game is being played on SEC soil (in Atlanta). Once again, Alabama got there without winning its own SEC division.

Perhaps the most frustrating part for a fan in Columbus or Salt Lake City is that the SEC wasn’t particularly great this year. It went 2-5 in its other bowl games. There’s a reason nearly half the league just went through...